Seventeen Flavors of Cake
by fanficboy88
Summary: Peeta is troubled. His wife had a very public affair with an old flame, his own daughter has been sentenced to community service for crimes she claims she hasn't committed and his son spends most days away from the house refusing to tell anyone anything. And then Lynn walks into his store...


**# 1 **

He drove into town on a dusty, old motorbike. As he turned the corner at the town center and headed for his cake store at the square, the bike gave a few coughs before it decided to throw in the towel and just stop. Peeta instantly put his foot down as the bike turned over at its side and began drifting over the square with sparks flying behind like a meteor shower on a hot summer night. When the bike plunged into the pool at the center of the square, with him on it, a fizzling noise came from the metal parts of the bike, and a cascade of smoke arose from the water.  
Peeta cursed and got up, dripping wet from the fountain water. Few people had made their way to the square this early, but the ones who had, discretely smiled. A young woman he couldn't remember the name of, giggled. Peeta ignored them and walked across the square and entered his store. The door was usually open this early; old misses Hart, or Lilac as she insisted on being called, owned the store, and she kept a spare set of keys. Peetas cake store used to be a part of the store next door, _Harts Heavenly Flowers_, but a wall was put right in the middle of it, separating the large store to two medium sized stores. The power to both stores was located in Peetas part, so every morning; Lilac Hart entered his store to turn on the power. Why she had chosen this inconvenient solution instead of just having her shop where his store was now, he didn't know, or cared. She was a big woman, with an even bigger heart, and her shop had flowers from all the districts, even some from the Capitol itself. She wasn't old per say, but the combination of her genes must have been very unfortunate, because even at the age of forty-three, she looked like a sixty-year-old.

Peeta jacked the backpack of his back and noticed it had torn open in the collision with the fountain. A big, gaping hole was staring at him from the bottom of his backpack, revealing darkness where his things should have been. They were probably at the bottom of the fountain. He cursed and left the wet backpack on the counter, turned around and stared right into the violet eyes of Lilac Hart.

"Are you alright, dear" she asked

"Oh I'm sorry misses H," he said while removing his helmet.

"I really should get my things…" Peeta said looking out the door and over to the poor bike in the fountain. The fizzling had stopped.

"This is Lynn," Lilac said, ignoring him. Peeta automatically reached out his hand and greeted the young lady that had followed misses H into his store.

"Peeta," he replied, "Peeta Mellark."

"Hi, I'm Lynn," the girl answered. She was a head lower than him, with a slender body and dark hair that fell down on her shoulders, slowly moving in the breeze that came in the front door.

"So you're here for the position as an assistant," Peeta said, staring into her eyes. They were bluish green.

"Yeah," she replied and let go of his hand.

"Well, great. Why don't you follow me to my office we'll have a chat," Peeta said as he turned around and started to walk towards the curtains in the back of his store, Lilac and Lynn closely following behind him. He started searching his pockets for the keys to the office door, and it took him a moment to realize that they were probably at the bottom of the fountain with the rest of his stuff.

"I just need to find my keys," he said and gave the fountain a nod.

"Yeah, quite an entrance," Lynn said and glanced out the open front door and out at the fountain. Peeta mumbled a few words and headed out to retrieve his things. People had gathered at the square to see what all the commotion was, so the walk from his store to the fountain was rather unpleasant. As he reached the fountain, people already whispered, and he was glad he couldn't hear what they were whispering about. He picked up his phone and keys from the cold water and shook them a couple of times to get rid of the water. The first thing Capitol did when the war was over was to extend the phone network so it covered all the thirteen districts, giving even District 13 cellphone reception. Not that anyone stayed in District 13 after the war, almost everyone moved back to their home district, and those who didn't travelled to Europe or some other continent, trying to escape the horrors of the war. He put his still wet phone in the pockets. He hoped it would still be functional. Although it was waterproof, he thought a collision with a fountain on a motorbike was a bit too much to handle. He'd have to check it later, he thought to himself as he glanced over at the store. He could see Misses H and Lynn through the front door. Lilac was gesticulating with her hands, a sure sign that she was talking about gossip, and enjoying it. He reached down again and picked up his wallet. After examining his wallet closer, he wished they had invented waterproof money too, as the paper-mache that currently inhabited it wouldn't be able to pay for anything. He put the wallet and phone back into his pocket and headed back to the store.

As he entered, he could hear the story that Lilac was telling.

"… She's never home, always with that Gale person, you know, the one you've seen on television…" she didn't complete the sentence when she saw Peeta enter. He sighed. It had been the favorite gossip of District 12, and probably every District, the last year, His wife's affair with Gale the celebrity. Peeta snorted, Gale the celebrity. What a stupid title. As if anyone in District 12 knew any other Gales. He walked past the two women, and headed to the purple curtains behind the counter.

"Please, follow me to my office," he said to Lynn, showing her in with his arm. Lilac walked past Lynn and was about to enter the backroom, he put his hand in the doorway, blocking her entrance.

"Not you, misses H, you're not conducting this interview, are you?"

"No, but I…" Lilac started, but Peeta interrupted her before she could finish. She might own his store, but he paid his rent every month, barely affording the price she demanded.

"But you nothing, misses H. Good day," he said, leading misses H out from behind the counter and out the front door. He closed the door behind her, despite her protests.

"She's a lovely woman," Lynn said as she looked around. The walls had yellow tapestry with different cakes lined down on it. The floor was bright and the only window in the room was facing the street, with colored boxes in it with different cakes on top of them.

"She's ok I guess," Peeta replied.

"And these cakes truly are beautiful," she continued, looking at the cakes in the window. "And they smell so good."

"They're fake, made out of plastic," Peeta said, walking up to her and demonstratively poking a cake, "a friend of mine had them made," he continued and took a deep breath with his nose, "even the smell is bogus. I had them made with cake scents," he said and turned to her. The beams from the rising sun outside glared through the window and hit her pale skin as she turned around and took another look at the store.

"So this is where I'll work," she said, pacing over the wooden floor towards the counter.

"If you get the job, yes," Peeta replied, following her with his eyes.

"How many has applied so far?" she continued and turned around, facing him.

"Well, just you, so far," he said and picked up his backpack. It had left a pool of water on the counter, he tried to wipe it off with the sleeve of his jacket, but it was also wet, so the result was that he only smeared the water to the edge. He cursed and headed for a curtain behind the desk.

"Follow me," he said to the girl again, who had let loose a little giggle when the water went over the edge of the counter and started to drip down on the floor. She came around the counter and followed him through the curtains.

The back room was a small hallway with two doors in each end.

"This is the kitchen," Peeta said, gesturing with his hand to the right, "and this is the office," he said and walked in the left door. The office was brown and small. It had a desk with a computer sitting on it, and two chairs, one on each side of the desk. He sat down behind the desk and turned the computer on.

"Please, sit down," he said, pointing at the char in front of the desk. Lynn placed her bag on the floor and sat down.

"So why did you open a cake store?" she said, looking directly at him and continued "didn't you and Katniss get enough money from the Hunger Games?"

Peeta kept staring at the screen, avoiding eye contact with Lynn as much as he could. She had no right to ask these questions, he was interviewing her, not the other way around. He ignored her question and started typing.

"So, you're here to apply for the sales-assistant job, did you bring any papers?" Peeta said, moving his eyes from the screen and over to her face.

"Ehm, I don't have any papers," Lynn said, blushing.

"You don't have any papers? What makes you think you're suited for this job then?" Peeta replied, letting loose a sigh.

"I can bake. Used to do it for my neighborhood back home in District 11, and besides, I'll only be selling cakes here, right?" she answered, still staring at him.

"Well, yes," he started, "selling the cakes will be your main priority. But being able to bake one is also a must. Part of the reason I'm looking for someone to help me out is that the demand has gotten bigger then I can handle," Peeta said, typing in some words on his computer. "How did you even hear of this job, if you recently moved in form District 11?" he asked.

"Well, Mr. Abernathy is a friend of my father; he usually supplies Mr. Abernathy with geese, the finest in the district! And he told me that you were looking for someone to help you out in your store. And I thought, hey, I can bake and sell cakes," she answered.

Peeta sighed. Haymitch Abernathy. Ever since the rebellion, Haymitch had started raising geese, and glasses. Between his drinking he usually travelled the districts, looking for new specimens to breed.

"Well, Mr. Abernathy was right. I am," Peeta answered. He wasn't sure what he thought about Lynn. At the same time as she seemed rude, she also knew how to answer him. And if there was something he liked, it was people that were able to answer him.

"Got any experience in sales?" he asked, closing the document he had opened. There was not any point in writing down her scarce information.

"Well, I used to help my mother at her store, selling vegetables and likes," she answered.

Peeta got up and reached out his hand.

"It was a pleasure, Lynn," he said, shaking her hand and looking at her baffled facial expression.

"Was that it?" she replied.

"I think I got what I needed from you," he answered and walked around the desk.

"As you are the only one to reply to the position in months, and I'm quite confident that no one else will apply, I think it's safe to assume that the job is yours. You can start tomorrow if you like." He said, and followed her out to the front room in the store.

"Well tomorrow it is then, Mr. Mellark," Lynn said with a bright smile on her face, showing of her perfect row of pearl white teeth, "Thank you so much," she added.

Peeta opened the front door for her and waved her goodbye as she walked out on the sunny square. Suddenly he remembered that he didn't know her last name, which he should if he were to call Haymitch and inquire about her.

"What's your last name?" he shouted, louder than he had meant to. Lynn turned her face towards him.

"Just call me Lynn" she said with a smile on her face as she turned the corner and disappeared.


End file.
